Application stores are growing everywhere like mushrooms. While users have initially embraced application stores because of the ease they offer with application installation, developers have several complaints. Division of profits from paid application and ineffectiveness of the screening process are among the major issues. Are application stores the best distribution channel possible? Can they satisfy both developers and users?

Now, as for the "for Linux" marketing represntation by indavidual programs. Marketing is all about the ten second catchy sound bite not accuracy.

I've frequently pointed out that "for Linux based systems" or "for Linux based distributions" would be more accurate and just as sesynct since listing seven major distribution names in each marketing line would get tired quickly. You may also notice that it's extremely rare for me to say "Linux" alone when not talking about the kernel specifically and "Linux based distros" when talking about things that are actually common across multiple distributions; specific distribution names when talking about specific distributions. Typing "Linux based distributions" takes a half second longer to type but:

- it provides clarity by indicating that there is more than one seporate product which happens to use the Linux kernel when talking to new or less knowledable users. These seporate products may be interoperable and familiar from one to the other but they are destinctly seporate objects from seporate providers.

- it provides clarity by specifying what distribution is affected when talking about a bug, resulting vulnerability, specific program or other attribute related to a specific distribution. Canonical's configuration choices do not affect Debian or Red Hat so it's an attribute of Ubuntu not an attribute of Debian Stable or RHEL.

In short, it cuts through the bullshit of intentionally confusing seporate products into a single thing which really only benefits people more interested in disparaging what they don't like rather than discussing actual technological attributes it.

Now, where it does make sense to intentionally talk about "Linux" instead of specific distributions or "Linux based distributions" indicating the greater family of seporate products:

- when discussing kernel bugs or vulns that indeed affect a majority of distributions by result of that shared kernel version

- when discussing drivers which are included into the kernel as modules. Yes, hardware can be "Linux ready" because it's using industry standards, already provided a driver through kernel.org or provides a third party kernel module for installation.

To get back to your specific given example; do you really think the majority of average users start from amarok.kde.org and work there way backwards into installing it? I honestly don't. My experience has been that most average users find Amarok or some other media manager installed by default and stick with it (ie. "don't want to think. Want vendor to make the choice for them" in your words). If not installed by default, most average users would find it in the package manager and install it from there. They may see it mentioned on chat forums or when talking to friends with "so, how do I install this?" followed by "check your add/remove software" or a specific simple command for the package manager. Heck, I'm an advanced user who infact chooses to install Amarok and this is the first time I've ever had reason to visit the Amarok webpage rather than simply pull it from my distribution's repository.

Generally, confusion over software and installation comes from this "Linux is all one product" crap that does not reflect reality (and fair enough for those who didn't know and are open to considering clarification; a more clear understanding is possible for them) and, users coming from a Windows background who have only ever seen software provided seporately from the Windows distribution. For them, again, clarity is possible; point them to the GUI package manager, let them use the browse or search functinos and it usually ends with "really, it's that easy.. and all this software is just there available for me to use?"

Lumping anyting that happens to use the Linux kernel together to misrepresent it as a single product from a single vendor supports someone's personal agenda and usually one based on bias except in the rare cases where the focus onf the topic actually applies across the majority of Linux based products in a category. Recognizing the difference between distributions when talking about seporate distributions regardless of what kernel they may or may not use supports clarity and understanding of the topic giving a solid basis for productive discussion.

Yet still, I don't get what this discussion of branding, marketing language and Android versus other Linux based distro stuff has to do with the original topic regarding benefits of a repository distribution model and that the "app store" is clearly just a branded repository system. It's not about proving general purpose Linux based distributions better or worse than the Android distribution. My only reason for mentioning it originally was to clarify that repositories are distribution specific and often one of many differentiating attributes of a given distribution along with pointing out that one organization does not have control over how another seporate organization chooses to manage it's repositories.

At this point, I really don't expect you to change your opinion and I don't see evidence to the contrary of my opinion so it seems we're at an empass and should agree to disagree. Hopefully reading through both sides of the thread allows other's to make a more informed decision about there own opinions and understanding of the topics.